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Absolute power can only be supported by error, ignorance and prejudice.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Government
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Error
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Men have various subjects in which they may excel, or at least would be thought to excel, and though they love to hear justice done to them where they know they excel, yet they are most and best flattered upon those points where they wish to excel and yet are doubtful whether they do or not.
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We are as often duped by diffidence as by confidence.
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Our self-love is mortified, when we think our opinions, and even our tastes, customs, and dresses, either arraigned or condemnedas, on the contrary, it is tickled and flattered by approbation.
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Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it merely to show that you have one.
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Not to care for philosophy is to be a true philospher.
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Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it it will counsel you best.
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People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.
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In the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.
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Next to clothes being fine, they should be well made, and worn easily for a man is only the less genteel for a fine coat, if, in wearing it, he shows a regard for it, and is not as easy in it as if it was a plain one.
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Instead of giving in to the greatest misfortune that can happen at my age, deafness, I busy myself in searching out all possible compensations, and I apply myself much more to all the amusements that are here within my grasp.
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Learn to shrink yourself to the size of the company you are in. Take their tone, whatever it may be, and excell in it if you canbut never pretend to give the tone. A free conversation will no more bear a dictator than a free government will.
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Distrust those who love you extremely upon a slight acquaintance, and without any visible reason.
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Little vicious minds abound with anger and revenge and are incapable of feeling te pleasure of forgiving their enemies.
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Everything is worth seeing once, and the more one sees the less one either wonders or admires.
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People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.
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Give Dayrolles a chair.
Lord Chesterfield
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Good manners, to those one does not love, are no more a breach of truth, than your humble servant, at the bottom of a challengeis they are universally agreed upon, and understand to be things of course. They are necessary guards of the decency and peace of society.
Lord Chesterfield
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To know a little of anything gives neither satisfaction nor credit, but often brings disgrace or ridicule.
Lord Chesterfield
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Our conjectures pass upon us for truths we will know what we do not know, and often, what we cannot know: so mortifying to our pride is the base suspicion of ignorance.
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Violent measures are always dangerous, but, when necessary, may then be looked on as wise. They have, however, the advantage of never being matter of indifference and, when well concerted, must be decisive.
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